Too Few In America’s Gun Debate Are ‘Straight Shooters’

Following the most recent mass shootings in Colorado Springs, CO and San Bernadino, CA, media pundits and politicians wasted no time to reignite the gun debate. As each of these tragedies were still underway and the information was slowly trickling out, several influential people took to the airwaves and social media outlets to immediately disseminate political talking points about gun control. As Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel once stated while he was appointed as White House Chief of Staff to President Obama, “Never let a serious crisis go to waste” (Emanuel, 2012).

Yet perhaps more troubling than the penchant for politically capitalizing on such horrific events, is the fact that the ensuing discussion is far from honest or accurate. Without truth and accuracy, the debate is useless at best and quite harmful at its worst. If nothing more is accomplished than a lot of yelling and hyperbole then we have merely wasted our energies and probably made a few enemies along the way. If something drastic and or extremely tendentious takes place, the repercussions could be far worse than some lost energy. And the worst part is that a great deal of this is avoidable. Among the numerous reasons attributed to the derailment of the gun debate are a few standouts.

First, the definition of “mass shootings” has certainly not been agreed upon and the numbers cited by many of the loudest voices are drastically inaccurate. Second is the fact that the overwhelming desire to attempt to compare the United States to other countries lends itself to some artful cherry-picking of the data. Last is the assertion that one specific murder weapon is more nefarious than the next and that its elimination is the panacea. This essay endeavors to inject some clarity into the discourse by addressing these three causal factors for the careless and counterfactual gun debate.

Undefined Terms

Of what use are words if they have no meaning? And if their meanings are fluid or largely subjective, how can accurate and articulate discussion take place? As Nathaniel Hawthorne, the Nineteenth Century American Novelist once put it, “Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy, of dishonesty.” Defining terms and using them correctly is paramount in any argument or discussion and not doing so only leads to fallacious and spurious reasoning.

The current gun debate is no different. It is likely even more susceptible to inaccuracy due to the emotional nature of the subject. Which is precisely why definitive terms are necessary. Terms like “mass shootings” and “assault rifles” are used in headlines and speeches because they are powerful and they get your attention. Yet they are applied inconsistently and are often wielded in a disingenuous manner. You simply cannot have an honest discussion about mass shootings if you cannot define what that means.

Many have tried to define the term “mass shooting” as of late. However, there are many questions to ask when it comes to defining this term. Such as, how many victims constitutes a mass shooting? Is it two, three, or ten? Do the victims have to be fatally wounded? Does a shootout between two gangs entail a mass shooting? If most of the dead or wounded were shot by police, is it still a mass shooting? If the shooter is killed or kills himself, is he included in the figure? Does motive make a difference? For instance, if a father tragically kills his family, is this the same thing as a rampage shooting in a church or school?

These are all important questions. Yet these questions are hardly being addressed and the statistics being thrown around are full of inconsistencies. In a recent Washington Post article, the author cites a web database called Mass Shooting Tracker in order to assert that 355 mass shootings had taken place as of December 2nd (Ingraham, 2015). The problem is, if you look at the news stories that Mass Shooting Tracker has compiled in order to reach this number, you begin to see that it is incredibly inflated.

When one navigates to the Mass Shooting Tracker website, you see a long list of consecutively ordered “mass shootings” listed by date and accompanied with a death toll and injury count. As you scroll down the list it begins to get daunting. Whether or not all of these cases can be defined as true mass shootings, there is no doubt that we have far too much violence in America. That said, getting to the bottom of why this violence takes place is greatly hindered when we are not accurate in discussing it.

This list has been cited by prestigious newspapers such as The New York Times in order to make the claim that these incidents happen at an average rate of one per day, despite the specious nature of what is included in it. As one reporter for another news outlet puts it, “Mass Shooting Tracker’s definition of a mass shooting is so broad that it included a BB gun attack by two children which resulted in no serious injuries in its data set” (Donegan, 2015). A closer look reveals several other troubling inclusions. Number 108, for example, involves an alleged shootout between two biker gangs in Waco Texas (Weller, 2015). Even if this were what actually happened, it is a bit of a stretch to compare it to rampage shootings like Sandy Hook or Columbine.

There are varying reports about the Waco incident though. Several sources claim the biker meeting was a routine gathering where several clubs come together to discuss things like proposed legislation for a Biker Awareness Month. There has apparently never been violence at these meetings before and several bikers brought their wives along for the festivities. However, the Waco police had gotten word that there might be a conflict between two of the participating gangs and had the place surrounded. Unfortunately, one biker did pull a small pistol and shot a member of a rival gang, but according to several witnesses, the other eight fatalities and 18 wounded were the result of police opening fire on the crowd (Doherty, 2015).

There are several other discrepancies on the Mass Shooting list as well. Again, the criteria is four people wounded or killed, but if a gunman shoots three people and then kills himself, he too is counted as a victim. There are also numerous cases where two people have gotten into a bar fight and someone pulls a gun and tries to shoot the other. As the person runs away, several people end up getting injured by stray bullets (Weller, 2015). While these incidents are certainly tragic and news worthy, it is simply dishonest to include them in the same context as the recent San Bernadino massacre.

If we are to have any legitimacy in the gun discussion, we need to find a better way to frame it so it does not get derailed by fraudulent claims. The quickest way to send civil discourse off the tracks is to make remarks built on half-truths. Just to highlight the range of ideas on the matter, it is important to note that at least one media outlet has determined the definition of a mass shooting as an incident where four or more are killed in the incident. If the determining factor is whether or not the shooting victims die, the sum of “mass shootings” in 2015 was a total of “29” as of December 3rd when the Washington Post cited that 355 number (Donegan, 2015). As long as we have such a drastic divide on how the figure is tallied, no serious exchange of ideas will take place.

International Comparisons

It is very tempting to look at the policies and statistics of other countries and to try and draw inferences. However, this type of reasoning can pose an incalculable amount of problems. For starters, each country is drastically different in historical context and demographical makeup. Perhaps even more poignant is the fact that a country that has been an immigration melting pot for hundreds of years will never be comparable to any other nation on the planet. America is such a country. And to make an attempt to use the data from other countries as a bludgeon to beat American Constitutionalists over the head is simply a non-starter.

Demographics and history are major issues, but geography plays a role as well. If you try to compare an island nation to one with multiple international borders, you are going to have a bad time. Its apples and oranges. Australia is recently the favored apple to America’s orange. Here you have a nation that shares borders with two other countries, one being a devloping nation that hosts one of the largest drug cartels on the globe. Expecting America to behave like Australia is like expecting a frisbee to behave like a boomerang. Yet the comparison is frequently made.

Australia’s gun ban includes a litany of gun models and actions. The prohibition includes making semi-automatic long guns, as well as pump-action shotguns, illegal. This action has led to American journalists publishing such headlines as “How A Conservative-Led Australia Ended Mass Killings.” The article opens by stating, “In the continuing debate over how to stop mass killings in the United States, Australia has become a familiar touchstone” (Ramzy, et. al., 2015). Well, this is fallacious on its face, as mass killings have not stopped in Australia. For instance, in June of 2000, 15 backpackers were killed when their hostel was set on fire (Roberts, 2003).

Another example is one where three people were killed and others wounded in 2011 (Hectorville, 2011). In fact, just last year there were multiple mass killings in Australia. One of these murderous sprees consisted of eight children being stabbed to death in a single rampage killing (Helsel, et. al., 2014). So, for those claiming that mass killing is a thing of the past in Australia, we should ask them to define what “the past” means. Especially when you look at the “mass shootings” that took place in Australia last year as well.

Most important are the numbers revealed by recent studies on the Australian “gun buy-back” program. Yes, the Australian government has taken several guns off of the streets. However, the vast majority of these disarmed citizens served no threat to the livelihood of their average countrymen and most certainly do not deserve the same level of scrutiny that the bad actors are receiving. What is most interesting is that Australia’s lauded gun ban has been studied long enough to uncover that the decrease in violence in that country was likely more to do with the ongoing trend that preceded the ban. Even as researchers try to claim that the ban has worked, they are forced to admit that the drop in violent attacks is not statistically significant when compared to the decline that was already taking place pre-ban (Leigh, 2010).

Australia is the favored focus as of late for everyone from candidates running for President to sympathetic news reporters calling for tougher gun laws. Yet most of these pontificators do not stop there. They usually go on to state things like “This just doesn’t happen in other countries.” Those are the words of President Obama while giving a press conference in Paris, France. He was addressing the Planned Parenthood shooting where three people were tragically killed and several others wounded. The problem with this statement though, is that he was making it from a city where terrorists had just slaughtered 128 people in several locations across the city (Ye Hee Lee, 2015).

Admittedly, these types of incidents do appear to happen less in other countries. However, it is still not entirely honest to make these comparisons. Japan is a perfect example of why this tactic is not helpful. They are apparently notorious for misreporting murders as suicides or accidental deaths. Japan’s National Police Agency has even admitted that a mere 10% of suspicious deaths are given an autopsy and that number drops to 5% if the initial determination is suicide (Adelstein, 2013). And Japan is not alone. There are a host of reporting issues in every country. Even if you could control for all of the cultural and geographical differences, you would still have problems. Crime statistics are for determining national trends. Not for international comparisons.

Are Guns Truly the Problem?

The most pertinent question in this discussion is perhaps whether or not guns are the real issue at hand. We have to ask ourselves, is it the weapon of choice that is the actual problem here? Or is the real culprit the prevalent desire to harm each other? America has a unique set of cultural and societal hindrances. There is an abundance of wealth and opportunity in our nation, but there is also a sordid past that has played a starring role in our violent populace.

If you begin at the year 1776, there is a 91% chance that every calendar year since has seen some sort of military engagement. In fact, all U.S. Presidents can be considered to have waged war in some capacity. They may have called it something else, but the military was fighting in some sort of operation for the vast majority of our history. America has never seen a decade in which military operations were not being performed and the only time we went a full five years without war was during the Great Depression (Danios, 2011).

Is it possible that our nation’s proclivity for making war is an impressing force upon our citizenry? Or is our readiness to fight simply indicative of a society that is innately violent? Or is there some other factor at play here? These are all important questions to consider. Just look at how we brand everything as a war. The “War on Drugs.” The ‘War on Poverty.” The “War on Cancer.” Is it possible that we may be too inclined to declare war? What causes us to frame things in this manner?

Americans pay big money for violent imagery. Our top selling movies, music, and video games are frequently among the most violent being offered. We have to ask ourselves, if guns were to vanish into thin air, would our society be any less violent? You would be hard pressed to answer that question with anything other than “probably not.” And if you have even the slightest idea of how the free-market works, you understand that if the gun were never invented, something else would have taken its place. Something possibly even more capable of mass killings. People will always feel the need to protect themselves and whatever tool suits us best to do so, can always fall into the hands of nefarious actors. Focusing on the tool, rather than the motive, is tantamount to having bunion surgery for the purpose of managing a congenital heart disease. There is something far bigger to attend to that has been going on since your birth.

Closing Thoughts

No matter how you analyze it, there are too many shootings in America. Without question. But simply discussing what type of guns the populace is allowed to own is like using a garden hose on a four-alarm fire. Something bigger will be necessary to tame that fire and it will need to be focused on its fuel source. Not at the smoke. The three causal factors addressed here pertain to the type of gun debates that only serve to muddy the waters and have almost been brought to the point of banality. We have to be honest with ourselves and honest with one another if we are to ever have a fulfilling discussion. And if the focus must be on guns, there at least needs to be a mutual respect that entails integrity and accuracy. So far, that does not appear to be happening on any noticeable scale.

Danios. (2011). America Has Been At War 93% of the Time – 222 Out of 239 Years –Since 1776. Retrieved December 18, 2015, from http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/02/america-war-93-time-222-239-years-since-1776.html

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Chad is currently working toward a PhD in criminal justice. His research interest are: Alternatives to incarceration, The war on drugs, and diversion programs for at risk youth. Chad identifies most closely with Anabaptist theology and considers himself a Voluntaryist.

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